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Insights Bush OKs Budget; Hikes Title I, Cuts Reading First : Published Online: December 27, 2007 : By Alyson Klein and David J. Hoff : Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org. President Bush has signed into a law a bill that will increase federal education spending by 2.9 percent in fiscal 2008 and that generally favors Democratic priorities over the administration’s. The plan to appropriate $59.2 billion for U.S. Department of Education programs in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 is part of a larger budget drama in which Democrats largely gave in to a hard-line White House stance that earlier measures contained too much in domestic spending increases. In signing the bill Dec. 26, President Bush criticized Congress for including too many earmarks, or small projects requested by individual lawmakers, in the legislation, a $550 billion omnibus measure that includes fiscal 2008 spending for most other Cabinet agencies as well as the Education Department. He said in a statement that the bill contains nearly 9,800 earmarks, totaling more than $10 billion. “These projects are not funded through a merit-based process and provide a vehicle for wasteful government spending,” the president said. The Senate gave final approval to the bill Dec. 18 by a vote of 76-17; the House approved it the next day, 272-142. The measure will provide $13.9 billion to the Title I program for disadvantaged students, an 8.6 percent increase over the $12.8 billion appropriated for the program in fiscal 2007. But the amount is about 2 percent less than what was proposed for the program in a bill vetoed by President Bush in November. By contrast, the Reading First program was cut significantly under the legislation, dropping from $1 billion last year to $393 million in fiscal 2008. That is slightly more severe than the $400 million proposed for the program in the vetoed spending bill. The president said he vetoed that bill, which covered the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, because it exceeded the spending caps set in his proposed budget. Reading First, aimed at grades K-3, is one of President Bush’s highest priorities under the No Child Left Behind Act, which also covers Title I and many other federal K-12 programs. But the reading program has paid a price on Capitol Hill for a series of highly critical reports over the past 15 months by the Education Department’s inspector general that found favoritism for certain textbook publishers and other management problems in the program’s early years. Small Increases Elsewhere Education advocates expressed disappointment over the modest increases for K-12 programs included in the omnibus legislation. “It’s not as good as we had hoped,” said Mary Kusler, the assistant director of governmental relations for the American Association of School Administrators, based in Arlington Va. “We have not gotten to the point in Congress where they’re investing in the future.” For K-12 education, most of the total will finance programs for the 2008-09 school year. In addition to the major increase for Title I and the cut to Reading First, the measure will appropriate: • $10.9 billion for K-12 state grants under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a nearly 1 percent increase over the fiscal 2007 level of $10.8 billion; • $2.93 billion to help states improve the quality of their teachers, a 1.7 percent increase; and • $1.2 billion for career and vocational education programs, a 0.5 percent decrease. Bush Administration to Limit Medicaid Payments to Schools : December 27, 2007 By The Associated Press, courtesy of Edweek.org. Washington The Bush administration issued a new rule Friday that eliminates Medicaid reimbursement for certain transportation and administrative tasks undertaken by schools on behalf of students with disabilities. A wide range of medical services are furnished to students in schools. Speech and physical therapy are typical examples. Medicaid, the government's health insurance program for the poor, helps pay for those activities for low-income children. It will continue to pay. However, the new rule will restrict when schools can bill the federal government for clerical duties associated with providing health care. For example, schools can no longer expect Medicaid reimbursement for the planning of student immunizations. Schools also won't get paid for transporting students getting speech or physical therapy to school or back home. The savings to the federal government is projected at $3.6 billion over the next five years. During that same period, the federal government will spend an estimated $1.2 trillion on Medicaid. Lawmakers were so concerned about the rule that they passed legislation this past week that placed a six-month moratorium on it. More than 1,200 people wrote in to comment on the proposal — most opposed. School principals and superintendents said that the loss of money could mean that schools will have to cut back on other programs. For example, one opponent said that Medicaid reimbursement allows staff to attend workshops and purchase "needed technology and materials to better educate our children." Medicaid officials replied that most of the comments validated their concern that schools were improperly using Medicaid funding to pay for services "that are clearly educational in nature." category:Planks_from_elsewhere